[1] Associated with organizations for the civic betterment of conditions for children and other public and semi-public philanthropic movements,[2] she established the world's first playground commission in Los Angeles.

[2] Prior to the biennial meeting of the General Federation of Women's Clubs held in Los Angeles, California, in May 1902, Rodman's civic activity had been confined to work in connection with the public schools, she having been instrumental in causing the collection of a fund for the purchase of pictures and statues for school rooms.

Eleven playgrounds were established and equipped with gymnasiums and apparatus for games, some of them having complete and elaborate outfits, with baths and dressing rooms.

The immediate result of the public playgrounds was a great decrease in the number of juvenile arrests and the noticeable improvement in the general morale of Los Angeles youth.

[4][5] In 1919, Rodman sailed from San Francisco for India on the steamship Santa Cruz; it was a six months travel on account of her husband's health, with visits to Singapore, Saigon, and Calcutta.

After her return in November, work would be immediately commenced in transferring the efforts of the Belgian Committee to relief of the suffering in Serbia and France.

[6] In 1940, she was engaged in World War II war-relief work, organizing for the American Red Cross in her neighborhood district of Silver Lake, having moved there in 1937.

[3] On August 3, 1892,[7] she married Willoughby Rodman, a lawyer, and an author of a work on the history of the bench and bar of Southern California and articles for Encyclopedia of Law, essays and poems.